Tamil Nadu Engineering seats will not be vacant this year: Ponmudi

"During the first round of counselling of the students, seeking engineering admissions in the State, a total of 10,148 candidates secured the seats compared to previous year's figure of about 7,000", he said "similarly, in the second round of counselling, more than 20,000 students got provisional allotments, which is higher than last year's figure of just about 13,000". 

He said still two rounds of counselling left, more students were expected to get allotments and therefore, there will not be any engineering seats vacant. "All the students, who have enrolled, will get seat allotments based on their cutoff marks and choice of their courses", he said. 

The minister also warned that strict action including cancellation of affiliation would be taken if any private college collect fees from the students, who secured engineering admissions in government school horizontal quota of 7%. "Licence to run the college will also be cancelled if it indulges in collecting fees from the students", he added. 

Ponmudi also pointed out that more than 5,000 students studied from government schools, who have availed the horizontal quota, got admissions in engineering colleges. 

Stating that admissions of all the professional courses will be done based on the 69% reservation, he said "even admissions for biotechnology course in Anna University will be based on the quota, which was fixed by the State government". 

Meanwhile, the Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE), which conducts engineering admissions in the State, will announce the tentative allotment for the students who participated in the third round of counselling on Monday. 

Accordingly, those students will have time to confirm their seat allocation on October 12 till 5 PM. They would get provisional allotment on the next day. The students participating in the fifth and final round of counselling, which started on October 9, will get provisional allotments on October 17.